"There's a federal goal for zero airplane fatalities and a federal goal for zero railroad fatalities," Bhatia said. "Yet we have these acceptable levels of people getting hit by cars and killed."Read On

The U.S. government has long subsidized homeownership through tax deductions and loan guarantees. Now, it is re-examining whether it can afford to underwrite the American Dream. Earlier this month, a presidential deficit commission proposed reducing the mortgage-interest deduction, the largest government subsidy for housing...
Read On

"We spend all this time thinking about cities in terms of their local details, their restaurants and museums and weather," West says. "I had this hunch that there was something more, that every city was also shaped by a set of hidden laws."
Read On

"We spend all this time thinking about cities in terms of their local details, their restaurants and museums and weather," West says. "I had this hunch that there was something more, that every city was also shaped by a set of hidden laws."
Read On

Richardson plan commissioners on Tuesday will resume discussion of a proposal to develop one of the largest swaths of vacant land left in the city. The plan, for an urban-style mixed-use development around the Bush Turnpike light-rail station, has been met with strong opposition from nearby residents.. Read On

Urban Planning is a public sector occupation. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 80% of urban planners in the United States work for governments, more than 66% work in local government...Read On

From the calm, almost peaceful public reactions of the Metropolitan Transit Commission, you'd have thought it was virtually pain-free to chop 20 percent from the $1.1 billion budget for a proposed light rail line to northeast Charlotte... Read On

Lane Transit District is in a pickle, to use the technical term. At the behest of the Eugene City Council, it has spent more than two years and a bunch of federal dollars to study the feasibility of an EmX line to serve West Eugene. A number of business owners along West 11th Avenue have done their own study and determined they’d rather not face the disruptions and confusion that may be caused by improvements outside their front doors. Read On

THE Postal Service recently announced it had lost $8.5 billion in the last year, despite cutting more than 100,000 jobs. Without new revenue and other changes to get it back on a firm financial footing, it said, it could face insolvency by the end of 2011... Read On

Jeff Wood, Reconnecting America's New Media Director and Chief Cartographer, collects news stories and blog posts about transit and transit-oriented development from around the country and posts them at TheDirectTransfer.com. Jeff then takes the top 10 articles in each of five categories and sends that out as Other Side of the Tracks email newsletter. The content of that email is then posted here.